Sense of belonging contributes to academic success, persistence, and self-efficacy among students, and is especially poignant for first-generation students who are less likely to engage socially, intellectually, and academically. Residential spaces provide the ideal environment to examine belongingness among first-generation students because of…

Colleges increasingly emphasize the importance of socioeconomic diversity, but little work examines the link between such diversity and outcomes important to the campus climate. Using a national dataset, we test the link between two measures of socioeconomic diversity and cross-racial interaction, an outcome paramount to triggering the benefits of…

Our study examines how negative and positive diversity interactions influence students' psychological well-being. Specifically, we explore how diversity interactions influence students' psychological well-being at the end of their first year of college and how these experiences vary by race. Our findings suggest that while negative diversity…

Within this study, the authors are interested in engagement practices for Black students, White students, and the mixed-race college student population at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and non-HBCUs. The authors asked the following research questions: How does engagement compare for Black, White, and biracial students with…

Over the last few decades there has been increased recognition that the concept of 'access' encompasses not only entry to higher education (HE) but also participation and successful completion. Despite this, very little research has been carried out in Ireland on non-traditional students' experience of university. This article explores the…

The study aims to empirically test the relationship between types of campus adaptations across academic years of engineering undergraduate B. Tech students pursuing a four-year study at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT's) and National Institute of Technology (NIT's) in India. The Multivariate Analysis of Variance (Manova) test was run with SPSS…

Institutions of higher education must include policy-informing research into their long-term retention planning to improve institutional practices regarding student support and persistence (Bean, 2001; Kuh, 2006; Brown, 2015). This information is needed to make institutions of higher education aware of how student characteristics interact with the…

The transition from high school to post-secondary education is often difficult for students. The literature examining factors that foster a successful transition generally focuses on previous academic achievement and/or individual differences that enable students to navigate the culture of university. Through interviews with first year university…

There is an increasing need for student affairs professionals to understand the experiences of student athletes in higher education. The researchers asked: How do academic, athletic, and social experiences integrate to affect the freshman student athlete transition to college and impact their overall college experience? The results indicated that…

First-year college student retention is important to colleges and universities, as well as beyond academia. An analysis was conduced of emergent themes and subthemes from 144 nonreturning students' stories about school and about home throughout their first-year experience. These students wrote more negative stories about school-related events than…

Baccalaureate degree completion is essential for future development as a nation. Latinxs are the largest minority group in the country and by 2050 nearly one out of every three individuals will be of Latinx descent. While Latinx enrollment may increase, the proportion completing college is not comparable. This study explored the pre-college…

Continued research on the first-year experience of African American male students entering institutions of higher learning is necessary and can provide a deeper look at institutional and individual factors that African American male students may encounter, and impact their academic success. Understanding the issues that affect African American…

In college, high levels of student engagement, including the formation of relationships with faculty and staff, are positively associated with learning and development. Faculty and staff, known as institutional agents, can provide critical forms of institutional knowledge, resources, and services that can enhance the college experience and…

This study used Sanford's (1966) theory of challenge and support to explore the stories of successful college students in transition. Using a mixed-methods design, 709 first-year and senior students and 8 upper-division nontraditional students were interviewed about their college experiences. Quantitative results indicated that supportive campus…

Since 1994, there has been a doubling in the enrolment of students in South Africa's public universities. Students, especially first-generation students, face numerous challenges that may impact their subjective perceptions of their well-being. In a milieu of high levels of suicide and depression amongst South Africa's student population, the…